[Simh] 8" Floppy disk image getting HALT error

[Kevin Handy]

If it is readable as text, it probably isn't wps-8. At least the 5-1/4"
formar was encoded into 12 bit words, and weren't directly readable.

On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 5:01 PM, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> In addition to everything mentioned by everyone else, you might want to
> take into account the type of "report" that you saw. If it's more a
> document type report than a line printer listing report, you might have a
> diskette from a DEC WPS-8 word processing system.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPS-8
>
> Tom
>
> On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 4:10 PM, Walker Sampson <
> Walker.Sampson at colorado.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>>
>>
>> Let me preface this by saying that I’m unfamiliar with the original PDP
>> machines. I work as a digital archivist and have received 8” floppy disks
>> from which I need to recover data.
>>
>>
>>
>> I believe I have recovered at least partial data from these disks; I’ve
>> connected a Y-E Data 8” floppy drive to a KryoFlux floppy disk controller
>> and gotten positive sector results setting the format to a DEC RX02 sector
>> image. When I investigate the resulting disk image in a hex editor, I am
>> seeing clearly a report document, so I don’t believe I have a false
>> positive.
>>
>>
>>
>> Outside of observing in a hex editor however, I don’t know how to access
>> the disk or its contents. Using SIMH, I haven’t gotten the virtual machine
>> to boot the floppy disk image.
>>
>>
>>
>> Commands “AT RK01 <disk_image>” and then “BOOT RK01” give me a “HALT
>> instruction, PC: 000002 (HALT)” message for the PDP-11 program. The PDP-8
>> stalls indefinitely and the PDP-10 outputs “Non-existent device” as well.
>>
>>
>>
>> I can’t go back to the donors and ask what machines these 8” floppies
>> were used with, so I’m not sure how to begin troubleshooting.
>>
>>
>>
>> Any advice in that area is much appreciated!
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>> Walker
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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